Talks on a possible new three-year contract for McDonough County Highway Department employees are scheduled to begin next week.

County Engineer Tom Hickman said Thursday that he would like to see a new contract in place when the current pact expires in November. Hickman will serve on the administrative negotiating team along with county board Chairman Scott Schwerer, Clarke Kelso, the board's road and bridge committee chairman, and Bruce Beale of Canton, the board's contract attorney.

At Thursday's road and bridge committee meeting, board Vice-Chairman Earl Simms and committee Vice-Chairman Dave Courtelyou were asked to also serve on the negotiating team.

Other business

The committee also discussed the current road and bridge construction schedule. Hickman said work has been completed on the Township District #1 Bridge west of Tennessee near the county line, and that construction would soon begin on the Industry Township Bridge.

Hickman said his crew is working on installing bridge culvert pipe in New Salem Township and in Chalmers Township. He said plans and specifications are being completed for the Colmar Bridge, which the county plans to build next summer.

The county engineer said his crew has sealcoated the portion of Grant Street east of the Macomb city limits, and that work will be done on six miles of Ball Fore Road west of the city.

Hickman noted contracted crews have begun to move dirt for the Macomb Northwest Bypass and previous preliminary construction work resulted in the installation of three new bridge culverts on county highways. He said he intends to have the county crew mill the base of the Tennessee Blacktop and then it would be sealcoated, and that two inches would be milled from the base of Raritan Road and then a four-inch concrete overlay would be completed.

Kelso said he believes the limestone base of many county and township roads has eroded to the point that it does little good to do an overlay.

"Some of the (township) road commissioners are talking about the deterioration of the limestone base," he said.

Hickman said some of the county roads only have a six-inch base, which is not sufficient to anchor an overlay.

Crew supervisor Dave Cadwalader said crews spray-patched the potholes on two county highways, did edge repair on three highways and erosion repair on another, and did spray patching on Grant Street to prepare it for sealcoating.

He said a box culvert was built on one county highway and a field entrance was made for another, and that the crew installed corrugated metal pipes for three townships, cleaned up an oil spill for Chalmers Township, and graded the shoulders on Macomb's Ember Road.